Microsoft Still Considering Xbox 360 Backward Compatibility For Xbox One

Less than a year ago, former Xbox Boss Don Mattrick said that including backward compatibility in a new console would be “really backwards.” Thankfully, there are some at Microsoft still investigating ways to play your old content on your new hardware.

At the Microsoft Build conference last week, partner development lead Frank Savage responded to an audience inquiry about plans for backward compatibility on Xbox One. “There are [plans], but we’re not done thinking them through yet, unfortunately,” he said.

The hangup is in the conversion from the PowerPC hardware powering the Xbox 360 to the x86 architecture of the Xbox One. With six months under our belt in the new generation, is this something you’re interested in Microsoft investing time in, or have you moved on?

Our TakePut simply, Microsoft has an opportunity here. If it can manage to get backward compatibility working and give users access to their digital libraries, it would be an enormous competitive advantage. Even now, it would be a show of good faith to customers.

Don Mattrick wasn’t thinking ahead to a situation in which Microsoft is playing from behind. The Kinect might not have been worth the extra $100 to some, but having access to older content (and for those new to the Xbox family a wide open, affordable library)? That might have moved more units in the earliest days of the new generation.